28th Feb 2018

Blackbird Private Dining & Events

In 2017 we saw a wave of new tech bringing voice to the core of our digital experiences - Alexa, Google Home and our in car navigation systems have us hooked on "speaking" out loud to find out information.

Typically the realm of hand-busy, eyes-busy domains (ie. the car), voice is now moving beyond the fringe, into the mainstay of our digital experiences, and in 2018 it is set to boom...

Come and hear our industry experts share with us some of the "must-know" information about how voice interactivity will change consumer behaviour, radicalise search and how your brand can start to prepare for the new tidal wave of voice requirements. We'll hear from industry leading software developers who are designing the voice interfaces you are interacting with and a "conversation designer" (yes, that's a real job!).

Join us for networking and a panel discussion on how voice assistants are going to change search, content and your brand in 2018.

Wilson's Parking Riverside Centre Car Park (closest carpark to Blackbird)
123 Eagle Street, Brisbane
Enter after 5pm and Blackbird can validate your parking ticket so that you only pay $7. No prior online booking is necessary, just remember to bring your ticket with you to validate at the event.

Blackbird Private Dining & Events

Venue Sponsor

Blackbird is the ultimate Brisbane riverside venue. With stunning views, luxurious décor and award winning food and beverage it has everything you need to WOW for your next event!

Opening in February 2014, it has quickly grown to become one of Brisbane’s finest bar and restaurants and with this success has recently expanded with new events venue, Blackbird Private Dining & Events. Now a multi-level destination the venue can accommodate private groups with intimate dinners for 10 guests up to gala cocktail events of 950 guests across a variety of interesting and versatile event spaces.

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Andzen

DPMA

Robert Schwarz

Managing Director, Enterprise Australia and New Zealand, Nuance

Robert Schwarz leads the Nuance Enterprise team in Australia and New Zealand. He is responsible for helping large organisations and government departments deliver intelligent customer self-service solutions that drive enhanced customer experiences and provide cost effective outcomes.

Prior to joining Nuance, Robert was most recently the Director of the OEM and Managed Cloud as a Service businesses for SAP ANZ, where he was responsible for developing new routes to market for SAP software solutions. He has had various senior management positions whilst at SAP, including General Manager of the Southern region, where he was responsible for all sales and operations within that market.

Prior to SAP, Robert was the CEO at The Distillery Software and before then he was the Managing Director of Damovo Australia and Hong Kong, where he was responsible for all sales and operations of the company.

Robert has more than 25 years’ experience in IT and Telecommunications, which includes senior roles in companies such as IBM, Business Objects and Oracle where he has held numerous strategic and senior management positions.

Clarissa Keil

Founder and CEO

Clarissa Keil is a leader in global digital transformation, innovation and customer experience with 18 years’ experience across strategic business and technology-enabled change. She has worked for a number of leading organisations in Europe and Australia, including AXA Investment Managers, Westpac Banking Corporation, BT Financial Group, Sunsuper and QSuper, where she led the digital and customer experience streams of large scale transformational programs, both from a strategy and delivery perspective.

Last year Clarissa left the corporate world to found a strategic consultancy practice that delivers human-centred innovation to drive exceptional customer and business outcomes for its clients. Past clients include Government departments, tertiary education providers, large financial services organisations and Fintech start-ups.

She’s also a Director of Fintech QLD, an organization that is focussed on building and fostering the Queensland FinTech community to create new opportunities and further the boundaries of finance. FinTech QLD runs regular high quality events and networking sessions for its 1000+ strong community of members.

Nicholas Therkelsen-Terry

CEO & Co-founder

CEO Nicholas Therkelsen co-founded Max Kelsen in 2015 to provide big data and machine learning services to clients large and small. In his position as CEO, Nicholas is responsible for designing and executing strategic vision, project design and management, fiscal and legal governance, and team building. Prior to this, Nick was consulting for companies across a range of industries to assist with their technology requirements. Nick holds a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Economics from the University of Queensland.

Nick has a broad range of expertise spanning business, economics, sales, management and law. Nick has a deep theoretical and applied understanding of cutting-edge machine learning techniques, and has been widely recognised as a domain expert in this field. He is a regular speaker at artificial intelligence meetups around the country, and also at conferences such as Gartner ITXPO, NSW Gov DC, Urbanity and IBM Think 2018.

Nick also co-founded Cityshape in 2016, an application focussed on aggregating property development planning data and serves as its CTO. Likewise, in 2017, Nick co-founded cognitiveCX, a platform for enterprises to analyse and process unstructured data from any source.

Panel Facilitator: Laura Campbell

Director, Deloitte Digital

Laura Campbell is a Director at Deloitte Digital. Laura’s career has run the full gamut of digital, PR and strategic marketing. She has specialist skills in developing and optimising online channels, which have been formed in her roles both internationally and domestically across a wide variety of industries including banking and finance, tourism and online retail.

Laura’s committed to providing channel of choice for customers and hence devises solutions that cohesively deliver digital and offline customer experiences. A natural leader, Laura has formed and led dynamic, results-driven teams, and sets an example to others with her inquisitive outlook and high level of personal accountability.